iStockphoto / Kelly Dalling
A fly fisherman in Virginia called his shot and announced he would catch the biggest fish of his life that day and then went out and did exactly that. He caught the first-ever blue marlin on a fly in the state of Virginia which is now a pending fly fishing record in the state according to Tidewater Fishing’s latest video.
Angler Brian Trow retold the story of how it all went down while fishing onboard the Waterman. He says he told the crew he would catch the biggest fish of his life on a fly rod that day and specifically that fish would be a blue marlin. This, of course, is a pretty outlandish claim as this marks the first time that anyone knows of where a blue marlin has been caught in Virginia using a fly rod.
Flash forward a couple of hours and he was making history. It wasn’t without a little bit of controversy though. Others on the boat took exception with how long it took him to battle the blue marlin using a fly rod.
@fishingtvapp The FIRST EVER Blue Marlin caught on fly in the state! – ‘Tidewater’ on FishingTV Click the link to watch now! https://www.fishingtv.com/video/tidewater/ Following a near-fatal rock-climbing fall, Art Webb was looking for something to help him recreate the adrenaline highs that climbing had provided him. He found it: chasing some of the fastest fish in the ocean – Marlin and other billfish – with a fly rod. As his stories of his adventures spread, two of his friends – fishing obsessives Brian and Colby Trow, couldn’t pass up the chance to join his mission to catch marlin in their home waters off Virginia. fishing fishingtv tidewater flyfishing sportfishing bluemarlin marlin marlinfishing fishingrecord firstever
Brian said “I heard some negativity about an hour and a half into the fight… I heard some things about how we could’ve had it already” had they been fishing with conventional or heavier tackle. But he quoted his good friend Tom Sadler who says “slow is steady, and steady is smooth.” And after getting his blue marlin to the boat it’s believed that Brian Trow’s blue marlin is the first and only blue ever caught in Virginia waters on a fly rod.
Here’s that same clip on Instagram if it wasn’t working on TikTok for some of you:
I know they don’t have striped marlin in the mid-Atlantic but that fish pulling up behind the boat all lit up with its colors showing… That really looked like a striped marlin to me. Just goes to show how much more I still have to learn about fishing. I caught my first sailfish a few years after catching my first blue marlin and when the sail took the bait I was certain it was a blue marlin at the time because that’s all I’d know. These big fish still play tricks on my eyes.
Major congratulations go out to the crew for landing this history-making blue marlin on a fly in Virginia.